


the concept of grace

by helenecixous



Category: Gone Girl (2014), Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Genre: F/F, Gaaaaaaaaaaay, Getting Together, Mutual Pining, eyes emoji, idk if i like this i wrote it in one night, we all know whose fault this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: She’s all bark and no bite, preferring to make other people do the biting, and there’s something about that that makes you laugh, because beneath all of the bravado, in the end she’s just as human as the rest of you.





	the concept of grace

You don’t do love, or relationships - they’re Nick’s thing. Ever since you were both kids, he did the girls, you did, well… anything else. He brought girlfriend after girlfriend home, and breakups got messier and messier, and you remember the first time you witnessed a fight. He’d cheated on Angela with some girl you’d never bothered to ask about, and she was crying on your sofa, her mouth working furiously, as though she had wanted to yell at him, to scream and hit and kick, and he had just stood there, looking stupidly apathetic in the way he does when he gets stressed. You tried to feel sorry for him, you really did, you tried so hard to take his side in this battle that wasn’t yours, but all you could genuinely do was focus on the way you wanted to brush away her tears and hold her, tell her that she was radiant, and you swore to yourself when she left that you would never make a girl cry like that. You were eighteen when you accepted that you were falling in love with women.

 

You stay in Missouri. Nick ‘grows out of it’, insists that he’s more of a city boy. You ask him only once whether he’s moving to New York to appease his wife - who you decide you hate. Anyone who grew up known as “Amazing Amy” means trouble, but he brushes you off, mumbles something about opportunities and career choices and money and whatever else, and you just fix him with a stare that means you know him better than that. The only thing he can offer you is an apologetic smile, and you shake your head. “Idiot,” you mutter, and he shrugs, and when he leaves you wonder whether you’ll ever meet someone you’d move states for.

 

When Amy goes missing you learn a lot about your brother, but you learn a lot more about yourself. You learn that you’re able to withstand incredible amounts of pressure, that there is nothing that could surprise you anymore, that it doesn’t matter whether you’ve known someone for your whole life, you’ll never know them completely… and then there’s Rhonda. You learn pretty quickly that any immensely stressful situation can always be mitigated by an intimidating, efficient, bossy detective. You hated her, but only because you had to. Because she didn’t get Nick out of the situation fast enough, and because it’s your thing to hate anyone in any kind of position of authority, but it never stopped you from admiring her from afar, or from stifling a laugh each time she called Nick out for being the arsehole he is.

 

The whole situation with Amy and Nick dissipates, (you refuse to label it ‘fixed’), and the journalists that still hound The Bar trickle away slowly as readers realise that there is no more story - no hidden incestual scandal, no more bodies under floorboards or otherwise, to be dug up and exploited, and they all eventually become bored with the archetype of the perfect American couple and move on like vultures, on to the next corpse that calls to be picked apart.

 

You talk to Nick about buying Amy out of The Bar. You tell him that you don’t want to be tied to Amy at all, don’t want to owe her anything, and you despise the fact that something that brings you so much comfort and purpose belongs, technically, to her. You tell him that he can play happy families with her if he really wants to, but you’d actually rather die than have to do that. So he agrees, probably because you’d given him that look that reminds him of that time you’d broken his arm when you were ten, and you both buy her out and you tend at The Bar and are finally able to play blissful ignorance of your sister-in-law’s existence.

 

You don’t know how long Amy’s been back for. She’s heavily pregnant now, but you only know this from what Nick’s told you, and you’ve not seen Rhonda for what feels like years. You know that Nick keeps in contact with her, but each time she comes to The Bar for a catch up on the latest episode of Amy’s crazy, you find yourself away, busy with small and ultimately inconsequential things. You try not to spend too long thinking about why this is, about why just the thought of the detective makes your cheeks flame with something that feels like embarrassment, but when you’re laying in bed, awake at 4am, your thoughts betray you and you end up mulling it over. You’d been convinced and hopeful that her searching your shed and warranting your arrest to get at Nick might have done something to temper your obvious (and inconvenient) attraction, but a large part of you knows and accepts that it was just her job. She didn’t like Nick - at that point neither did you - and nothing did come of it, but still. It pisses you off that even when you keep seeing other people you’re thinking of her, always, because you want to hate her. You want to hate her because she’s so intrinsically linked to that nightmarish shitshow, but you also want to hate her,  _ need  _ to hate her, because you’re pining for her, and it’s ridiculous. You feel like you’re going insane with it.

 

Autumn in Missouri this year is unforgiving, cruel, and unrelenting. You tell Nick that it must have found inspiration from  _ Amazing Amy,  _ but you feel like he doesn’t properly appreciate your wit. Of course, true to form, the heating in The Bar decides to give up with no consideration at all to its customers, and to you, and the plumbers you call tell you they can’t get out to you until tomorrow for ‘technical reasons’. That had been three days ago, and even though you’re practically made up of layers by this point, you can still see your breath. It’s as though you’re stuck in a never ending rainstorm, because when it’s not coming down with enough power to break drainpipes, it’s spitting, or promising a very wet destruction with clouds that are so low and thick and dark that you feel almost suffocated by them.

 

You get to The Bar in the morning, and it’s tipping it down. You’re, stupidly, wearing nothing but a hoodie over your jumper, and you can’t pull your keys from your pocket because your fingers are too cold and wet denim is as unhelpful as Nick in any and all scenarios. Your glasses are steaming up from the heat of your face, and they’re so wet that you can’t see a thing. By the time you get them out of your pocket you’re cussing under your breath, and it takes you some seconds to realise that there’s no more rain beating down on the back of your neck hard enough to sting. You look up, squinting over your completely useless lenses, and Boney’s standing there, holding an umbrella over you and standing close enough that you’re both sheltered.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” you say, ignoring the way now you’re not focusing on the mild discomfort from the force of the rain, your clothes are heavy and soaked and freezing. You manage to force the key into the door, finally, and you open it and step inside.

She follows you in, and she’s wearing that little self assured smirk that must just have come naturally to her as she woke up one day. “Any chance of a drink?” she asks you, closing the door and sliding onto a barstool as you attempt to wrestle the wet fabric from your person.

You disappear into the back and when you come back you’re wearing an old hoodie you’d got at university, and you’re towel drying your hair. “Drinking at eleven in the morning?” you ask her, putting the towel down and reaching for two glasses. “Bit early, isn’t it?”

“It’s fucking freezing in here,” she says, ignoring you and draining the large coffee cup she’s holding before she tosses it into the bin behind the bar. “Boiler go bust?”

You pour two whiskeys and push one towards her. “You don’t need to tell me,” you groan, shivering just thinking about it. “They said they’d come to fix it and I still haven’t heard anything.”

“I reckon Amy probably rang ‘em, told ‘em she’d see to each of ‘em personally if they dare to help the Ms. Dunne with the dodgy boiler.”

“Don’t,” you say, holding up a hand and closing your eyes. “This is a strictly Amy-free zone.”

She laughs, and you’re disgusted by the fact that it  _ warms  _ you. You sip your drink to distract yourself, and she lets silence fall. You watch the way she swirls the amber liquid around the glass contemplatively, and you grimace when your hands start tingling with the sudden warmth in lieu of the cold outside. You’re shit at small talk, especially when you’re trying to talk to someone you’d quite like to kiss, bonus points if that person almost had your brother arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. You pick at the sleeves of your hoodie and then finish your drink, looking up at her expectantly.

“Are you after Nick?” you ask eventually, and you don’t know whether you want her to say yes or no. In the half light from outside she looks softer than ever, like her edges are blurring into the room behind her, and everything’s pale but dark at the same time.

“Nah,” she says, throwing her drink back and grimacing. “I thought I’d come in for a bit. I was in the area, and things get a bit dull when the weather’s this awful. Lots of would-be criminals just can’t be bothered to get outta bed.”

“I know that feeling,” you mutter, and lean forward, sighing.

“Business been slow?”

“What gives you that idea?”

She smiles again, and you’re glad that she doesn’t take you seriously enough to be offended by your abrasive tone. You try not to sigh, because her fingers are curled around the glass and you’re always surprised by how gentle they are. You half expect her to storm into a place and smash up everything in her wake, just because she can, but that’s just how she comes across, probably what she wants people to think about her. She’s all bark and no bite, preferring to make other people do the biting, and there’s something about that that makes you laugh, because beneath all of the bravado, in the end she’s just as human as the rest of you.

 

She leaves after another drink, leaves you shivering and very much alone until you decide to get home and have a long bath, making sure to prop an umbrella by the door so you don’t forget it tomorrow. You spend a lot of time in a too hot bath with too many bubbles, and you spend too much time thinking about her. The whole business with Nick has completely turned you off relationships, and all of the women you’ve got to know since Amy’s return you only know in the biblical sense, and only for a short while. Most of them know you as a Dunne, know your face and think they know Nick’s story, so nobody is really surprised when you stop returning their calls, because you’re a Dunne, and the Dunne family has crazy fucked up down to a T.

 

She starts coming to The Bar more and more often, and you refuse to let yourself think about it too much because you don’t even know which team she plays for, or whether she plays for both. She’s mentioned an ex husband to Nick before, and it’s with a certain degree of dismay that you figure she’s probably lingering for your brother. Apparently girls liked that kind of messed up tortured soul in a guy, even when the guy is a renowned cheater. The more she comes around, the longer she sits with you, the more you see her loosened with alcohol, the sharper her tongue becomes and the softer her smile, the harder you fall, and the more pissed off about it you get. You become practically celibate, because fucking around with other women suddenly seems less fun and slightly more pointless when Rhonda fucking Boney has squeezed her way into every single aspect of your life. It’s easier to gaze at her like a lovestruck teenager when you’re not paranoid that she knows a thing or two she shouldn’t about your recent sex life, because she’s a detective, and she could probably take one look at you and tell you the colour of the t shirt your last lover had been wearing when you took her home. The only thing you have to comfort you is that if Nick ever even considered making a move on Boney then Amy would probably not hesitate in embedding six bullets into his skull.

 

At some point you start noticing that she comes around when Nick isn’t there - when she  _ knows  _ that Nick isn’t there, and that thought sends you into overdrive. The possibility that she’s actually endeavouring to spend time with  _ you _ … it makes you thrum with anxiety and tenuous, barely there hope. She starts staying past closing, sitting with you as you clean up and wipe down tables and shut everything off, and often she doesn’t say much at all, she just watches you and you both listen to whatever shit’s on the radio and let this thing, whatever it is, develop slowly between you before you try to actively cultivate it.

 

It’s been a week since you last saw her, and weeks since you last saw Nick - who’s busy playing house with his wife and newborn baby. He’d begged you to be a part of the kid’s life, but you’d stubbornly refused. You couldn’t have anything to do with anything that Amy had produced, no matter what its genetic coding is, and he had accepted it, reluctantly, after days of incessant phone calls and text messages and voicemails. At this point you’re sick of the vibrating of your phone, the shrill ringing of your landline, and you’re on your fortieth fantasy about taking a hammer to each of them when your mobile starts buzzing earnestly on the table beside you. You sit up on the sofa and grab it, furiously accepting the call.

“Nick, I already fucking told you,” you snap. “I’m glad you’ve got a kid, if that’s what you want and need to pretend that none of the past year happened. I’m thrilled that you can do this to yourself, but I  _ won’t -  _ and if you ask me  _ one more time  _ so help me, God-”

“Margo?” the amusement that’s tinting that tone doesn’t belong to your brother. You close your eyes and flop back down, rubbing your face tiredly.

“Sorry, Rhonda,” you say weakly. “Sorry.”

“One of those weeks?”

“One of those  _ lives.” _

She chuckles, and you smile despite yourself. “You okay?”

You shrug, flexing the fingers on the hand that isn’t holding the phone. “Perfect. I mean, I’ve definitely been worse, so that’s gotta count for something, right?”

She laughs again, and there’s a pause. “Fancy a coffee?” she asks. “I know a great place. And you sound like you could use it.”

You roll over and look at the clock on your wall. “It’s ten forty five,” you say. “Of an evening, Boney.”

“Yeah, have I never told you how great my kitchen is? I got this nifty little coffee machine in it and everything.”

Your heart skips about seven beats and you sit up so quickly it makes you kind of dizzy. “You gonna pick me up?” you ask, and you’re relieved to hear that you don’t sound at all panicked. “I’m all over nifty little coffee machines.”

 

Gracefully, she gives you enough time to shower and panic enough to get it all out of your system by the time she arrives, and instead of coming to the door and knocking, or even ringing you again, she sits on the end of your driveway and fucking revs the engine, because that’s the kind of bitch she is. You grin to yourself, tell yourself that you’re already in way too fucking deep that you’re actually grinning about someone acting like an obnoxious douchebag, and because she knows that that’s exactly the kind of behaviour that would make you grin like an idiot.

“God,” she says, when you get into the car and turn to offer her a smile. “You look like shit.”

You punch her arm, none too lightly, and you’re both laughing as she drives you back to her place.

 

“So what’s this freak invitation about?” you ask, kicking your shoes off in her hallway.

“It isn’t actually sudden,” she says, and you turn to look at her, wait for her to explain. “I sent it ages ago. It just got lost in the mail.”

You flip her off, and then you take a moment to appreciate the fact that she’s in skinny jeans and a hoodie, and you don’t think you’ve seen her in anything that isn’t business wear.

“Coffee?” she calls from the kitchen, and you follow her in, shaking your head because when is she  _ not  _ drinking coffee?

“Why not?” you ask, perching on the end of the table and swinging your legs. “It’s what I was promised.”

You watch her make the coffee, try not to think about what this all means and how weird it would be if it turns out to mean nothing, because this entire situation has been engineered for a result - and a specific one at that. But then, you reason to yourself, it would also be weird if it turns out to be something, because how many people end up fancying, and then getting with, the detective who’d been a primary component in what had been the worst few weeks of your entire life?

She snaps you out of your thoughts by handing you your drink, and when she cups your face in her palms and kisses you gently, your first thought is that she, predictably, tastes of coffee, your second thought is that  _ holy fuck I’m being kissed by Rhonda motherfucking Boney,  _ and your third thought is  _ what the fuck will I be telling Nick.  _

Eventually, she pulls away from you, and she’s got that steely determined look in her eyes, and there’s no way you’re going to leave it there. So you put the hot cup down and hop down from the table, and there’s a second where she takes a step back, looks a little unsure, and then you’ve got your arms around her waist and she’s got hers around your shoulders and you’re kissing her, you’re actually kissing Rhonda Boney.

“Was this your plan?” you murmur, barely pulling away from her lips to speak. “Promise me coffee, whisk me away in the dead of night, just to get me into bed?”

She laughs, leans forward to catch your lips again and you swear that she actually  _ nips  _ you before she replies. “You’re a whole step ahead of me,” she whispers, arching her eyebrow. “That last part wasn’t gonna come ‘til later.”

You grin, and place a much more gentle kiss to the corner of her lips. “You’re just getting predictable,” you say, and as she runs her fingertips carefully over the side of your neck, you kiss her again, and it feels like a beginning. 


End file.
